The Deep End
by deathrocket
Summary: When Jinx finally snaps during a game of chase and brings the gun down on Vi, how will she take it?
1. Game Over

[ **DISCLAIMER:** This is a story based very loosely off of Suqling's drawing, which will be linked on my _PROFILE. _The Deep End was originally posted on my roleplay blog (hence the shorter chapters, due to how much _longer_ it looked on tumblr), but I'm publishing it here for convenience. However, as of today (5 June), it remains unfinsished. Anyway, enjoy! ]

The dull glow of Fishbones's mouth spilled out onto tendrils of pink, turning the magenta into something of a crimson. The yellow glow of the cannon's eyes illuminated the pavement along with the warm golden flicker from a broken street lamp just above the two, caught in something of a draw. The terrorist knew it was checkmate—she knew that, should she choose to, she could finish what she had started, what she had dragged on for so long, the game that she had created and played and now… Now, she could win. She could institute her victory.

Her manic laughter erupted through the hot night air, echoing in the dead streets around them, not even dimmed by the crackling and crumbling noises of flames eating at the buildings surrounding. The sound was uneven, choppy, and, if anyone in the city of Piltover knew her as well as she claimed to know herself, unsure. Her voice was plagued by insanity when she laughed, her eyes impossibly wide and crazed grin even wider. Aqua braids had been littered with soot and dirt from the chase that had lasted for hours, leaving both cat and mouse exhausted, driven by only a mad hunger and a deranged thirst for risk and exhibition, a craving for notoriety and infamy, a deep desire to see the city reduced to ash and rubble where it once stood tall and proud in its progress.

The enforcer had ceased to struggle, having come to terms with her final moments of life. She realized in one of those moments that she should have seen this one coming—she would get too far into the game, go too deep and without backup as Caitlyn had instructed her _not_ to do, allow herself to get so caught up in the thrill of the chase that she would wind up in the clutches of the mouse, the mouse with fangs, the mouse with a touch like morphine, the mouse with three guns and tattoos and an appetite for destruction.

She had imagined an end similar to the one she was undoubtedly about to meet, in which the criminal would riddle her body with bullets and laugh as she bled out on the pavement. However, in that scenario, she had always hoped that the little terrorist would be caught soon after by her partner and her accompanying team. Having her locked away would have been best for the city of Piltover—no, the entirety of Runeterra—and she had always hoped that if she was unable to capture her, her more skilled partner would be able to.

Alas, she was alone in this endeavor. Caitlyn had been rendered immobile by gunshot wounds to her legs, all but left for dead; had it been some kind of mercy on the criminal's behalf, they wondered? Her team of professionals had been slaughtered in front of her, and half of the city's population raked down with them. The streets had been evacuated due to the mass scale of destruction brought upon them, something much larger than had been forced upon them before by a lithe girl with a penchant for chaos. This was more than just a few burning buildings that could be rebuilt almost as quickly as they went down.

Still, she had refused to go down without some kind of fight. She'd delivered her own brutality to the criminal, bringing out broken bones and bleeding gashes and things of the like. Blood rained down the crazy face, making her appear just a little bit more insane as she laughed at her impending victory.

Jinx looked down at her victim with no regrets, no remorse, and worst of all, no _feelings _for what she was about to do. She had gone completely numb, crazier than anyone had ever feared, making her the most dangerous being. Something inside her had snapped completely, broken into pieces, and it robbed her of all restraint.

A pair of hands, bleeding knuckles and trembling fingers, were held up to her. The enforcer had no appropriate words, and begging for her life was uncharacteristic of her, but god she had to do _something._ In return, she received the cannon being shoved onto her head harder than before, the sharp edges of the "teeth" scratching against her scalp. She winced slightly at the dull ache, but otherwise remained steeled in her emotions. She racked her brain for something to say, anything to say to get the psycho off of her. Her gauntlets had been left to burn in a fire somewhere, so her body, stripped of armor and weapons, was useless.

There was no way she would get out alive.

She couldn't suppress a chuckle, bringing about a perplexed expression from the criminal above her. She had her own, smug laughter, and it enraged Jinx, causing her brows to furrow and her teeth to clench and bare threateningly. The enforcer finally closed her eyes, for the last time, she presumed, not wanting to look into the frightening pink of her killer's eyes for a second longer.

"Guess this is game over," she mused, words barely carrying over the crackling of flames and booming of falling buildings around them.

Unable to exhibit any minute amount of restraint for a second longer, Jinx released a rocket directly into the enforcer's skull.


	2. Disconnected

Tattooed skin was splattered with a new ink, face marked with gore, pavement painted with blood as the impact of the rocket blasted her backwards, skidding on rubble and ash. The terrorist pushed herself up with weak limbs, staggering to stand. She glanced around and found that her cannon had been tossed aside onto a pile of wreckage, so with bruised legs she moved to retrieve it. His mouth was now illustrated with a bright red, liquid thick on his teeth and even clotting inside his eyes. Strands of pink were stuck here and there, entire masses of hair having been chewed off into the mouth of the cannon and now glued in place with blood. She held the weapon at her side, his strap having snapped a long while ago, and trudged over to the direct scene of the crime.

Her life force littered the street around her corpse, bits of her mind left here and there. Limbs left limp and unmoving and her _face…_

It was almost completely disfigured—the body could perhaps be a slight indicator of who it once belonged to, but the face had been marred far beyond recognition, past the ability to use the jaw for dental records, past anyone's ability to see a pale, expressionless, and dead face revealed under a thin white sheet for them to confirm that yes, that is—was—most certainly the Piltover Enforcer.

Knowing full well that the blood on her face wasn't her own, her tongue flicked out to swipe at it briefly. For several long moments after she had committed the all-too-personal crime, she stood in something of numbness. Something like emptiness and unresolved dwelled within her. It was all wrong, she knew. She should be cheering for herself, patting herself on the back, giving herself a round of applause at her victory. The score had finally been settled and she was declared the winner, at last she had _won_ the stupid game that she started, but something in her screamed at her and something inside her…

Laughed?

A laughter echoed inside her mind, the sound reverberating and looping as if on repeat, overlapping with itself and playing as if it were an audio track being blasted through speakers all around her. Her lips turned down into a deep frown, brows pushing together, teeth clenching in an attempt to ward off the foreign sound that most definitely was not her own. She let her trusted weapon clatter to the ground, scuffing his exterior further, in order to let her fingers tangle in the mess of blue hair, wet and stained red, and tug on the strands. Her hands travelled back to her messy braids and she grabbed onto those and yanked, hoping that something, anything would ward off the unwanted sounds that intruded upon her mind.

"Get out!" she screamed, directing her frustration at the corpse at her feet. She swung her leg out to kick at it with her boot, hardly causing it to budge at all. Tears began to well up at her eyes and she felt pathetic. She felt weak. She felt invaded, ruined, and broken when she should have felt victorious and triumphant. Triumph was the last thing on her mind as the voice laughed louder as if in defiance. "_Stop!_" No one was around to hear her shouts of opposition, and she had herself to thank for that.

She collapsed to her knees, her already bruised and scraped skin falling into a pool of still-warm blood. Her hands pulled even harder at her braids before she let them drop to the ground, putting her on all-fours. Breathing labored and face twisted in some kind of agony, she let out an enraged scream at the ground, a fist pounding at the pavement as if it would ward away the voice.

_Game over,_ it mused, and she immediately recognized who it had to belong to. _Who's the winner?_


	3. Reconnect?

Now-bloody hands swiped across the pavement, splashing through the pools of red she'd slammed them into. Her braids lied in the puddles, soaking up as much of the liquid as they could take, practically dying them with the deep rouge. Her stained hands flew to her face, painting her skin further with blood, as she clenched her teeth and suppressed horrified screams. She refused to let this voice get the best of her, refused to accept that there was some kind of ghost haunting her, or maybe, just _maybe_ she really had gone off the deep end, descending into a pit of lunacy.

_C'mon, you psycho,_ the voice coaxed, sounding exhausted with her antics but still rather pleased with itself. Jinx clenched her teeth harder, grinding them against each other. _Don't tell me you really thought I would be gone for good?_

Restraint now becoming a thing of the past, the terrorist let out a distressed and pained howl, her screeching voice carrying through the block, overpowering the sounds of crackling flames and crumbling buildings. She continued to wail wordlessly, bringing her fists down onto the soaked pavement relentlessly. The action wore down on her gloves, and eventually tore through them, scraping her knuckles, mixing her own blood with that of her latest victim's. Her shriek died down, lessening in intensity until it became something of a choking sob. She cradled her wounded hands against her chest, the pitiable, foreign sound muffled as she touched her forehead to the ground, somehow unable to bear the sight of the crime she'd committed.

The menace had carried out numerous scandals in the past, ranging from aggravated jaywalking to mass murder, always, _always_ accompanied with destruction of property. She was no stranger to violations of the law. She'd come to rather enjoy the screams of terror and agony that came from her victims as she shot them down, mowing them over as if they were nothing but overgrown blades of grass, disabling them in the masses like a crowd of worthless robots. '_No one dies screaming without me!'_ had become a trademark quote of hers, something she'd yell with utmost pride on the fields of justice. It was something that made her summoners laugh, something they stuck on posters, lunchboxes, and t-shirts alike.

Now, it was something that only made her cringe.

Appalled with the idea of herself, with her depravity and moral corruption beyond that of anyone else, she pushed herself up, sparing not even a fraction of a second of a glance to the horribly disfigured corpse ahead of her. She quickly turned around, so as to not be tempted to gaze upon it for any longer. She swiped a hand across her eyes, but only replaced her tears with blood and dirt.

_God, look at you!_ the voice chimed in, tone mocking and derisive. _You're pathetic!_

"I know," she replied aloud, scooping up her fish-shaped cannon into her arms and limping away from her game-winning kill. Fishbones's exterior was smudged with carnage, his usually lit eyes and mouth dim and flickering. He would need to be cleaned and tuned-up as soon as she got back to her watchtower. When she began moving his mouth like a puppet, she winced at the lecture she was convinced that she was about to receive.

"_Let's kill again," _she said in her typical Fishbones voice. Her eyebrows raised in shock, knowing how out of character it was for her usually domestic cannon. This was all coming from the one who longed for a small home in the country, with a white picket fence, a dog, and the average 2.5 children. The one who boasted normality in contrast to the menace's insanity. "_C'mon, Jinx! Let's kill again_. _Let's kill everyone._"

_You're so out of it, _the voice cut in, _your dumb gun isn't even civil anymore._ The criminal let her weapon fall lower in her hands, ceasing to puppet him. _So? Are you fucked up forever now, or what?_ Jinx stopped walking for a moment, her eyes shutting tight in an attempt to ward off the pestering voice in her mind. _Don't ignore me, braids. I'll only get louder._

"Go away," she mumbled through clenched teeth. Her grip on her cannon tightened and she scuffed her boots on the ground, steps becoming heavier despite the pain that would shoot up her legs and spine every time she stomped.

_I'm here forever,_ it mocked. _Forever and ever._


	4. Crash

It was foolish of her to think that things could just go back to normal. Back to the way they were before the incident, actually, was more of an accurate way to word it, considering things with her had never been normal, and by the looks of how her life had been progressing (or regressing, rather), would never be normal. The word _incident_ was almost comical in its usage, implying it had only become a minor conflict in her past, implying that it wasn't still raging in her memory months and months in the future. If she had the mind for excitement anymore, she would laugh at the word in itself.

Layer upon thick layer of dust had accumulated on top of everything Jinx had ever claimed as her own in her abandoned watch tower, coating the desk she usually lied her head upon and the couch that sat ignored upon one wall.

When sleep decided to finally grace Jinx after days of absence, sometimes even going a week or more without showing, it found her in the strangest of places. The scarred terrorist found slumber on the cold, stone floor of the room she occupied, leaning against a wall, sitting up in the chair by the desk, or even standing right up in place. Often times, while standing, she collapsed, knocking herself right out of her own sleep, and in those times, she would usually break into an unexplained fit of tears, feeling weaker and weaker with each drop that fell. It was uncharacteristic of her, she knew—the undefeated terror that struck the City of Progress, the one threat that plunged an entire city-state into darkness, the ruthless criminal that took risk after risk… broken.

Her weapons, her beloved guns and a few leftover Flame Chomper grenades, sat untouched against a wall in her tower, gathering what seemed like more dust than the rest of the place. Pow-Pow's vibrant exterior was dulled with the coat of grey powder that covered it, Zapper's clear barrel fogged up completely. The Chompers were rendered almost unrecognizable, piled up together in a heap.

Fishbones, however, was undoubtedly the most worn of them all. His eyes and maw had ceased to glow their bright gold and red. The belt wrapped around his body had snapped and was collected on the floor next to him. A spun web connected each end of his tail, a pleased spider sitting peacefully on its surface. His exterior, typically a greyish-blue, was now almost entirely grey, thanks to the dust.

Save for the blood that coated most of him. Although most of it had been dulled out from the dust that coated him, it was still there, still noticeable, a deep, rotted brown, crusting and chipping away like old paint. Had Jinx ever bothered to touch the cannon, she would find cleaning the gore off of him to be most difficult, and had she ever planned to use him again, she would find opening and closing his mouth to be nearly impossible now, the usual squeak accompanied by an awful grinding.

At long last, she confronted her heap of weapons, dropping the wadded-up ball of cloth between her hands onto the dusty surface of the desk, stirring up a cloud of dirt. She had been wringing it in her hands for hours, refusing to let it go. It had become a security blanket of sorts, offering her the smallest amount of assurance in her trying times.

After shuffling over, she cast a guilt-ridden expression down upon the guns. Without saying anything, she gave a lost shrug. Shooting was still and always would be hardwired into her, but she would never be able to handle them the same way again. It took her a good half hour to muster up the strength to even put her Zapper pistol in a holster at her thigh, and another ten minutes to strap Pow-Pow to her side, and a few minutes more to collect a few Flame Chompers at her belt. After those, she stared down at the cannon, hands limp at her sides. They moved to hover over the weapon, but she was unable to even think about lying her hands upon him, let alone shooting him.

She muttered a low, "Sorry, Fishbones," and turned before she could worry too much about leaving her beloved cannon behind. The thrills that he had offered her before just wouldn't feel the same, she thought.

Having already forced herself out of her tower, she saw no point in turning back, despite the numerous nagging agitations that clawed at the back of her mind, telling her that the outing was a horrible idea. It would be the first Piltover saw of the criminal in months, and they would be even less pleased to see her than before. Amazingly, yes, that sort of thing was possible. When you gravely injure the Sheriff, decommission the defender, and brutally murder the enforcer, people tended to hold you with a lot worse than simple hatred or disgust. Those petty little emotions warped and twisted and devolved into a howling bloodthirst, and Jinx knew that no citizen would hesitate to kill her themselves, should they have the audacity to do so. More than likely, though, they would cower as always. Piltover Proud, but still afraid of the one that caused a direct threat to their lives. With reason, she told herself.

The normally-thin terrorist was even worse off than she was before. Her cheeks had begun to sink in, having completely lost the roundness of her face. Bags sat below her eyes, permanently as far as she was concerned, stained a deeper, more dreary color then the rest of her already-pale complexion. Her ribs, already apparent before, were much more defined, each casting a bit of its own shadow from the rises and falls in her skin. Her shoulders and elbows jut out, akin to a corpse. Any part of her that was desirable to some before had been lost, and she knew that well. It was a fact that never ceased to torture her along with the many other facts that haunted her mind.

An old breakfast shop was her target for the morning. Before, she had only ever forced herself out of hiding once for this particular shop. The holdup went nicely at the time, and she had scampered away with a dozen free donuts, scathe-free. This time, however, wouldn't be the same.


	5. Glitch

A bell rang as Jinx entered the breakfast shop, and a few had turned to glance at her, followed by another, and another, until the entire shop was eyeing her down, all, predictably, consumed by fear. No one made a move, no one made a sound. Perhaps, she thought, they were too stunned to do so. Typically, at that point, someone would have screamed, and someone would have already alerted the Piltover Police Department of her appearance. Yet not a single soul dared to do so this time around. She shuffled awkwardly to the cashier, stepping past citizens who automatically parted to make a path for her. She cast a hazy magenta gaze toward some of them in turn until she got to the front of the line. A few silent moments, save for the unfamiliar pop tunes that played lightly in the background, passed before she finally spoke.

"A dozen," she stated simply, voice sounding creaky, forced, and aged, even. Her throat complained with the speech, having been dry for days that seemed like more. Hell, it might have been more than a few days, she thought. She hadn't exactly been keeping track of the days she had gone without a proper drink. When the cashier refused to budge, she continued with, "I said, a dozen."

Her patience had already been worn thin, having gained absolutely no excitement whatsoever from the silent crowd that surrounded her. She was simply pleased to have not been attacked, but she felt she deserved _more_. A hand reached lazily to her thigh and retrieved Zapper, holding it up unsteadily to point at the cashier's face.

"Are you even listening?" she questioned, expression hardly shifting into one of annoyance. She found even that sort of action difficult, and found holding up her pistol to be one of life's greatest challenges.

_Are you listening to me?_

Her eyes widened, and her grip on her weapon nearly faltered. She tightened her fingers around it, shifting her index finger from the trigger guard to rest right on the trigger. Since when had she been careful, anyway? Her limbs began to shake, her voice having nearly fled from her.

"A-a dozen," she said again, words shaking considerably. Her eyes darted from the donut counter to the cashier, to her shaking hand, and around between those three things. Her hold shifted to the left slightly, and she had to actively focus to shift it back to point at the cashier. Several more moments passed and still, no one behind the counter moved to fulfill her order.

_Good to know you're still crazy_, a familiar voice chimed in the very front of her mind. The words illustrated them in bright colors in her thought, flashing with vibrancy, distracting her from the task at hand for a moment. She shoved the heel of her free hand against each of her eyes in turn, watching her vision black out, swirl into more colors, and fade back into reality.

"Come on!" she said, her attempt to sound threatening falling almost flat. "Come on!" she said again, volume just below a shout. Her hold on her pistol was horribly shaky, not still in the least. "_Come on!_" Her voice had finally rose to a piercing, frustrated scream, and the cashier flinched at the sound. Eyes still wide, expression devoid of her signature grin, she must have been a horrific sight for those who simply stood there and stared. Her mouth hung open just slightly, her breathing shallow and short, jagged and interrupted. She pressed her lips together firmly and pulled back on the trigger.

Zapper made a pathetic noise, a shorting-out sort of sound, and did nothing. She pulled the trigger again, and a tiny little bolt of electricity, hardly enough to make your hair stand on-end, sparked at the tip. Her finger pressed repeatedly on the trigger, over and over, trying to force the gun to fire a deadly bolt at the cashier, but in return, she gained nothing but frustrating click after click, tiny spark here and insignificant spark there.

"No," she muttered, pulling the trigger over and over. "No, no, _no!_" After an uncountable attempts at firing her busted pistol, she nearly let it fall from her hands. It dangled by the trigger guard on her finger, and she found the mind to stick him back in his holster.

_I tried to tell you that it wasn't going to work_, the voice mocked. _Pff. Idiot._

"Shut up," came her voice, low and almost a whisper. Her hands flew to her temples, pressing down on them roughly. In turn, each moved to slide over an ear, although the shop she stood in remained silent. Legs feeling weaker by the second, she staggered backwards a few steps, bumping into a couple citizens who quickly darted to move out of her way once they realized her uneven movement.

_Dare ya to say it again._

"Shut up!" Her eyes shut tightly, blocking out the bright morning light that filtered into the shop from its many windows.

_C'mon, just a little louder!_

"SHUT UP! SHUT UP, SHUT UP!" Jinx thrashed this way and that, mussed and uneven, horribly-done braids waving this way and that like weak little whips. She had backed into a table, knocking it over along with the food on top of it, and ran headlong into a few patrons, staggering this way and that as she threw her head around, hoping to knock the voice out with the movements. Her screams of "SHUT UP!" had devolved into unintelligible shouts of rage mixed with horror, and at last, she opened her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked around the shop, eyes darting this way and that. Each patron was still staring on, terrified and confused now, as she backed up toward the door. She turned to push her way out, even shoving past people as she made a beeline for the door.

_Your exit totally wasn't dramatic enough. Go back in and try again._

Finally confronted with harsh sunlight once more, she threw up her arms to block the rays, stumbling around on the sidewalk and off the curb, hardly able to catch herself from falling. Still partially blinded, the terrorist wandered through the street, flinching at every car horn that confronted and threatened her. One of the vehicles stopped just next to her, even tapping her legs with the slightest bit of force. She pressed her bare palms against the hood of the car, receiving more loud honks in protest.

_Should have just let that car hit you, huh?_

Wandering off once more, she finally made it across the street and into an alleyway. Alleys, at one point, had always been sort of a safe route to her. Now, however, she only felt intimidated by the walls, holding her hands out on either side as if they had begun to close in on her.

_Better run, before the alley eats you!_

She broke into something of a drunken sprint, feeling as if her weapons were weighing her thin frame down. She dropped Chomper after Chomper on the ground, leaving the pins intact. She only sought to lose some of the weight that pulled her downward toward the asphalt at her feet.

_Aww, but don't you like those?_

Body weak as it were, Jinx's legs gave out on her, forcing her to collapse in an alleyway. She let out a small yelp of pain as her knees skidded against the asphalt, although it definitely wasn't a new feeling to her. Her previous sprees had sometimes ended in cuts, bruises, and broken bones alike, and she had never shed a tear. This time, though, she began to bawl. With calloused hands, she dragged herself along the ground to come to rest next to a dumpster, and she leaned her frail body against the wall. She leaned her head back, shutting her eyes to the sliver of bright blue sky that showed between the buildings. Broken wails sounded from wall to wall, and she brought a hand to cover her mouth.

_That's right, psycho. Don't want anyone to hear ya cry, huh?_

Jinx muttered something against her hand in response.

_Yeah, I have no idea what you just said, but I don't care. And heads-up, no pun intended, but I can see you cry!_ The voice let out a howl of entertained laughter, satisfied with its own joke._ See, the funny thing is, I can see you do everything!_ Jinx did her best to drown out the voice with the sound of her own hyperventilating, but it was no use. The voice _always_ overpowered other noises, no matter the volume or intensity. _I saw you in my apartment the other day. Can't believe they haven't cleared out the place, you know? What a shame. But you're doing a fine job of that yourself, aren't you? What is that, the fourth t-shirt? How pathetic._

She thought back to the scrap of cloth she had been clinging on to earlier in the day, the article of clothing she had rested her face on for just a short amount of time. The smell, she found, was one of the only things to bring comfort to her. It was the easiest time to find sleep, and she would accept anything. The scent, she had never been able to place, but she did her best to force herself to think about it whenever she encountered it. The entire apartment, she noted, smelled of that scent, despite it having been unoccupied for months.

_Coconut,_ the voice stated, matter-of-factly._ The smell you're thinking of is coconut._

She gave a slight nod in a silent thanks, her cries dying down just slightly, but the voice only scoffed at her.

_You're pathetic,_ it told her. _Look at you. Can't even hold up a fucking donut shop anymore. What a piece of fucking work you are._ It laughed once more, the sound coming out mighty and superior. _What happened to being the best of the worst?_ It asked her. _What happened to breaking rules, and buildings, and people?_ It rose in intensity, sounding angrier with each word. _What the fuck happened to that, huh, Braids!? What happened!?_

"You're dead!" she yelled in response, knowing full well that she could have simply _thought_ the words instead of yelling them. The voice, it seemed, always wormed its way into her thoughts, always knew what she was thinking at any given time, and always brought up her own thoughts to use as emotional blackmail. Despite that, it refused to converse with thought alone. She was forced to speak what she had to say, making her feel crazier with each passing conversation between herself and her own mind.

"You're dead, you're dead! Don't talk to me!" Her cries started back up once more, and she held her head tight between her hands, tangling fingers in her messy nest of aqua locks. As her voice died down, she whimpered, "You're dead."

_And whose fault is that!?_


	6. Cutscene

It was her fault. Of course.

Had Jinx never chased after Vi in the first place, had she never have even set her sights on Piltover, Vi's cocky and almost always angry persona wouldn't be trapped inside her head. The Enforcer's mind, spirit, _whatever_, wouldn't be stuck behind flickering pink eyes with nothing to do but _complain._ Those eyes wouldn't be stuck on lookout duty at all times for the hundreds of thousands who would undoubtedly take her throat in their hands. When it came to vilified criminal Jinx, sprees of destruction worse than any natural disaster and death toll higher than any serial killer the city had ever seen, every citizen of Piltover thought themselves to be the hands of justice. It had been made more than apparent to her in her most recent escapade that they would stop at next to nothing to find her and kill her. Everyone wanted to be the hero that ended Jinx's reign of terror-if it could even still be called that.

Weeks passed since Jinx's last attempt at holding up the breakfast shop failed miserably, bringing her down in a fall of disappointment, misery, and the screaming voice in her head. The criminal, brittle and breaking, had lost count of how many days had passed by her. She spent most of them sleeping, to her own surprise.

Sleep was entirely rare to come by, but she had learned to warp the words into something of a masochistic lullaby at that point. At random hours of the day, Jinx would doze off to the mocking words of Vi's persona, a voice that never disappeared for too long. She would pick out words she liked. _Fun. Coconut. Running._ Her name, here and there. After awhile, she even began to cling to insults that she heard most often. _Stupid. Coward. Pathetic._

Her weapons continued to gather dust in the corner and she wondered a few times if they would even function anymore with so much dirt, blood, and probably rust clogging them up. She was never one for routine maintenance in the first place, finding herself too lazy for it most of all. Fishbones nagged her incessantly, hour upon hour, to _just give us a quick dust, that's it! _He always sounded so optimistic when presenting her with options.

Fishbones didn't guide her through daily routines anymore. The cartoonish voice was absent from her mind and she hadn't heard a peep from him since the incident. Her hair went unbrushed for weeks, food built up on her teeth, dirt gathered visibly on her skin and under her nails, and the smell of body odor overpowered any other. Simply put, she was an absolute wreck, looking and smelling as if someone had tossed her into the Piltover Bay and immediately rolled her in the mud of the Howling Marsh. She found the energy within herself to confront him about it once, though never again.

"Why don't you _say _anything?" Her question fell useless on the pile of what had essentially become scrap metal in the corner of her room. There was no response in a silly voice, no perfectly reasonable retort to counter her. Wind howled through the open windows, chilling her frail body, even wrapped in the blanket she had brought along with her.

The weeks had not taken kindly to her, and a portion of her unbraided hair was horribly matted against her head. She still smelled a bit like the rain she had walked through the night before, and wouldn't be surprised if her hair still held onto a bit of the wetness.

She expected a response, of course. She had _always_ gotten a response when talking to Fishbones. He never ignored her-it was poor manners, he had once explained. Even when bringing up pointless arguments, even when telling jokes with stupid punch lines, her rocket launcher always replied.

She was instead confronted with absolute silence, something she had never had to put up with in any of her days. Her mouth hung open, waiting for him to say _anything_ so she could playfully interrupt, as she often did.

"Why?" she asked again, voice becoming more and more desperate, turning into something more of a plea than just a simple question. "Fishbones-"

_It's because I hate you!_ a voice finally spoke up. It sounded enough like him, she thought, that she didn't bother to question why it didn't sound _exactly_ like him. Her bright eyes widened, and in a moment of stunned stupor she dropped the blanket she had wrapped around her. Fishbones had always disagreed with her entire lifestyle-with the destruction, her poor hygiene, her awful diet-but he had never shown any signs of disliking her, much less _hating_ her.

"What..." She stopped to think for a moment, choosing her words as carefully as she could. "Fishbones, what are you saying?"

_I'm saying I hate you!_ he repeated for clarity. _I hate your stupid guts!_

Her knees began to shake, her foundations becoming weaker with each insult thrust at her like balls of fire. She felt her insides burning and she nervously rubbed the palms of her hands together. They slicked past one another with the sweat they'd accumulated. She added her too-long and broken fingernails into the mix, scratching at the skin uneasily.

_I think you're disgusting! _the voice continued. It seemed there was no end to the insults he had to deliver. Perhaps they had been building up for all the time he was silent._ A pathetic excuse and a waste of space!_

Her hands flew to the back of her neck, nails digging into the skin and tugging with every word. Her eyes stung with heat but she was too preoccupied dragging her nails to draw angry red lines on her own skin.

_Pathetic!_ it repeated. _Pathetic! Disgusting and pathe-hahaha!_ The voice devolved into snorting laughter, and had the voice been accompanied by a body, she knew it would have been slapping its own knee with humor. Her own hands halt, her body going still. _You totally thought...!_ the voice mocks, sounding nothing like the silly persona it had before. _You thought I was the stupid gun? Are you serious?_ Laughter continued and tears spilled from the corners of Jinx's eyes. She stared at Fishbones with fear as if he had been taken over by an unholy spirit before her. Words echoed around in her mind as they usually did when she tried to sleep, a sort of defense mechanism to protect herself from the onslaught of horrible things Vi's voice would undoubtedly say to her.

_Man,_ the voice said. _You have no idea how glad I am I don't have to share your head with that guy. Or any of those guys, really!_ An image of Vi reclining on her sofa, fingers interlaced behind her head and feet propped up on her coffee table, flickered through her mind for a fraction of a second. _It's already too cramped in here, you know? Geez, can't imagine if I had to listen to that guy telling me what to do all the time. I'd punch a hole in these walls if I could!_

Without warning, Jinx collapsed onto the floor, sitting on the too-cold tile on top of the wrinkled blanket she'd dropped. Warmth stains her cheeks in wet trails.

_Are you-are you serious?_ The voice was filled with disbelief and exhaust. It sighed. _Are you really crying? It was a joke. Gods, you're sensitive._

...

_At least wipe your eyes, stupid._

She blindly grabs at an edge of the blanket, bringing it up to bury her face in it, staining it with her tears and snot, rubbing off bits of dirt from her skin.

_Stop crying._


	7. Buff

The Enforcer's apartment had been emptied.

Jinx spent a few silent and still moments wondering if it had always been empty like this, even after her first visit. She wondered if the vaguely couch-shaped markings on the wall had always been so apparent, having blocked the walls from sunlight and stains alike. She wondered if the furniture imprints on the carpet had always been there to greet the bottoms of her boots every time she paid a visit. She wondered if the t-shirt she had stolen was simply a figment of her desperate imagination. She thought back on what little she could remember of the place and never recalled every surface always been coated in a generous layer of dust, but then again, she had never swiped her hands along them. Spiders had never taken refuge in the corners and closets, but perhaps she was looking past their webs.

Nothing smelled of coconut anymore.

Her boots made a sort of crunching noise on the carpet as she slowly made her way through the living room, though the sound was blocked out by the familiar background noise of the television humming nearby. Voices chimed in enthusiastically, laugh tracks periodically interrupting what had to have been a sitcom of sorts. She could hardly make out any of their words, but the sound in itself was soothing enough to her.

She noticed how tensed her muscles were, how her hand hovered over her Zapper, despite his display of fault those weeks ago. (She had, of course, hardly bothered to give him a routine cleaning and recharge, unable to find the strength or motivation in herself to do so.) Her body refused to relax, her steps careful and her eyes darting to every section of the room as if something was going to leap out at her at any given moment. It seemed impossible for the place to be inhabited by anything other than insects-chains and boarded windows were adept enough at keeping squatters and animals out of the place.

Ghosts were, of course, exempt from the barricades of chains and boarded windows. Often, Jinx wondered if she, too, were a ghost and that the image of her shooting through chains and busting through a locked door was simply a falsified act made to make her seem more alive.

Whatever it was that haunted her, that plagued her mind, that lurked in blind darkness and struck when she least expected...quieted down whenever she passed over the threshold. There was no yelling, no screaming, no horrible taunting whenever she found herself in the old apartment. The atmosphere it formed was equal parts calming and chilling.

The humming sounds of the television and muffled sitcom voices were overpowered by laughter from the other side of the room. Jinx's head sharply turned, only to find the couch-shaped stain on the wall and the imprints of its size on the carpet below. In an active attempt to calm herself down, her hand moved from hovering over her pistol to instead pull uneasily at the frayed end of a braid. She pulled the plait between her two hands, pulling at split ends and mussing through the tangled heap. She shook her head, hoping to shake away the background noise. The sounds, however, would not be so easily lost.

The suctioning sound of an opening refrigerator made her turn toward the kitchen where, of course, there was nothing going on. Clinking glass against glass, like bottles, came from the same area, followed by the sound of a closing fridge. An unidentified source rummaged through cabinets, though a few of them had been nailed shut and covered with wooden boards. Invisible silverware clinked together in a drawer, unreal objects being dropped onto the countertops. The kitchen faucet turned to full blast, imaginary water filling the sink. A fake person sat back onto the couch with a huff, there was a sigh, a cough, a running shower, doors opening and closing, and there was laughter, gods, there was _so much laughter._

In a crazed attempt to escape the sounds of the dead, Jinx fled to the bedroom, powering through a large spider web. All three of her guns, acting now as unnecessary clutter and width on her sides and back, scraped across walls and the doorframe. After shoving her way through the doorway, guns doing all they could to prevent her from going anywhere, she slammed the door shut behind her. She turned the lock as if any of the imaginary people would follow her into there. In fear or more sounds plaguing her, she covered her ears with the palms of her hands, sliding her back against the door to sit on the dusty floor, pulling her knees up to her chest.

The carpet was worn in the doorway, years of traffic having trampled it flat and painting it with layers of dirt. Its contrast was relieved with a hefty coating of dust, but the dirt was still visible. Jinx tried to look elsewhere, but the signs of previous life were everywhere. The bed's headboard had left bumps and nicks in the wall. A dresser and a nightstand had both left sun-stains on the walls. An old curtain rod left holes where it had been drilled in above the sliding-glass doors to the balcony. No section of the old bedroom spared Jinx from its previous life, however faded and absent. She shut her eyes tight, hands still pressed hard against her ears, rested her forehead on her knees, and willed the atmosphere to be _quiet._

She hadn't come here for all of this ruckus. She hadn't trespassed through locks and boards to be bombarded with signs of life. All Jinx had wanted out of this trip was some sort of sick reminder that Vi was gone for good, that the haunting voice in her head was _just_ a voice in her head and not some horrible ghost. But the flaring sounds around her made her think otherwise. They made her weak.

"She's dead," she muttered, her voice sounding much louder with her ears covered. "She's _dead_, she's _dead_, she's _dead_..." Her body began to rock forward and backward, the motion meant to be calming but offering nothing for her anxiety. "She's not _here_," she told herself. "No one is _here_, it's just _me_, just _me_ and my _guns._" She sucked in as much air as she could, held the breath for a few seconds, and let it out in a sort of sob. "It's just me," she repeated. "She's dead. She's dead! Vi is dead! She's _dead!_" Her rocking quickened its pace, and she began to slam her back against the closed door she leaned against. "She's _dead!_ She's _never coming back!_" With every exclamation, she slammed her back against the door. "Dead! Dead! Dead!" The words came out almost like an angry chant.

Something warm seeped onto her gloved hands, something wet, and she was forced to uncover her ears, letting the barrage of sounds back in. The wetness dripped down her head, over her ears, her forehead, her nose, her cheeks. A weak attempt to wipe it away was futile. The stream of liquid seemed endless, and finally she opened her eyes to look at her hands.

Crimson tainted her skin, dripped over her head and onto her shoulders. Thick blood covered her body, engulfed her, painted her skin and clothes. When she gasped, it flooded into her mouth, curdling her screams and muffling her raucous roar of terror. It stained her vision and she blindly lunged forward, grasping onto short carpet with bloody hands. She crawled unsighted toward something, _anything_, and finally her hands hit an object.

She slapped toward it a few times. It felt like a beam of wood. Unseeing, she grasped it and pulled herself toward it. The closer she got, the dryer she became. The blood dripped away into nothingness, and in a few moments, she was free of its reign.

Perplexed, she looked onward to the beam she had pulled herself to. It took her a few stunned moments of confusion to put the pieces together and realize that it was furniture. The foot of a bed, actually. Too puzzled by its sudden appearance to be terrified, she continued to study the piece of furniture, eyes trailing along its wooden surface and to its fabric portion. The bed was complete with a mattress, sheets, and blankets piled messily on top.

"I miss this bed."

The voice sounded too real, and yet completely false at the same time. It filled up the bedroom, conquered the space, leaving all of the other noises from the other rooms behind. In between sentences, there was a silence akin to darkness. There was absolutely nothing to be heard-no breath, no shuffling, no noise infiltrating from the outside world. The words penetrated Jinx's mind, and covering her ears would offer her no escape.

"Do you know how shitty it is to not have a bed?"

The criminal thought back on how she had thought it impossible for another person to break in, but perhaps she had been wrong. How could she not be, with another person sitting here on the mattress, attempting to make conversation with her? She looked up toward them from her seat on the floor, but every time she tried to focus her magenta gaze on them, something burned behind her eyes. There was static and a sort of messy, blur of colors, a vaguely person-shaped blob, but even with all of her strength and willpower she could not focus on their being.

"I'll spoil it for you-it sucks. Big time." The person-the voice-scoffed lightly. Jinx imagined that if she could focus on them, they would be shaking their head. "I bet this is what you came here for," they said, their words filled with sarcasm, "to hear me complain." They sighed heavily.

Jinx turned away and leaned against the side of the bed, having given up on attempting to focus on the vague shape. Her panic had washed away as the blood did. Something about the voice created a calm atmosphere. Muscles that she hadn't even realized were tensed, relaxed. Her eyes shut with ease. It was as if someone had slipped her a drug of some sort and every part of her body, every part of her _being_ had become serene.

There was a banging sound toward the front of the apartment, but Jinx couldn't be bothered to react to it. She let out a deep breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding in. Several sets of footsteps stormed the apartment, and Jinx just sat. Relaxed. More relaxed than she had been in months.

"Looks like our party was cut short, huh?"

Jinx gave a quiet, "Mhm."

"Someone probably saw you and called the cops."

"Yeah," Jinx replied.

The bed creaked with movement. The footsteps outside the bedroom stormed closer, voices calling out to check every nook and cranny in the place. Jinx didn't care-she didn't have the energy in her to care. It was almost impossible for her to care.

"Whatcha gonna do?" the voice wondered. Jinx shrugged. "You're gonna have to make up your mind." Jinx sighed. She was to comfortable, the calm atmosphere surrounding her like a thick blanket in the cold. She let it consume her entire being.

"Like, _now._"

All serenity was ripped from her, all sense of relaxation torn away abruptly. Her eyes shot open and she moved to spring to her feet, adrenaline rushing through every limb where the calm sensation had previously settled, but she found that she had already been standing. She glanced around for any sign of the being that had been talking to her before, but the room-empty as it was when she had entered-was devoid of any being besides herself. She shook her head vigorously, the confusion of the situation interfering with her ability to form an escape plan.

As if the entire situation hadn't fumbled around in her mind enough, a light breeze came from the open balcony door behind her, sending a slight chill up her bare legs and back. With no time to do anything other than accept the bizarre situation, Jinx took the escape immediately, dashing out of the balcony door and away from the scene.

Adrenaline coursed through her veins, pumped into her mind and made her fingers twitch with want for action. She paused her escape atop one of the apartment buildings nearby, turning back to face where she had just been. The building was flooded with officers, each searching for a trace of terror, for a flash of blue and pink. Instinctively, she placed a hand onto Pow Pow's handle at her side and the other at the replaced belt that kept Fishbones strapped to her body. She tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth anxiously, boot tapping on the rooftop impatiently.

It was mostly instinct that took over her body in that moment, and partially the thirst for some sort of action. Her life had been tinged with a dull grey in the past months, and in that moment, the vibrant colors of the buildings around her, of her guns, of her hair, of the poor, poor unsuspecting officers running around...they all exploded with unbelievable saturation.

With no more hesitation, Piltover's Most Wanted released her hold on her minigun and instead pulled her rocket launcher from his place at her back. Almost immediately, he began to oppose.

"_You really shouldn't do this,_" he griped in his typical whiny voice. "_They're just doing their job._"

With a dramatic scoff and a roll of her eyes, Jinx aimed the gun's mouth directly at the building full of officers. From her distance, they looked like little bugs, like the ones crawling around the abandoned apartment. They meant nothing to her.

"Yeah, they are," she agreed. "And it's annoying!"

Without any more restraint, she released a rocket directly into the crowded building.


End file.
